The undercarriage of vehicles and equipment can accumulate a significant amount of deposits and debris during normal use. Undercarriage includes but is not limited to the frame, wheel wells, underbody parts, and the underside of vehicles and equipment. Vehicles may include on- and off-road vehicles, such as cars, trucks, and all-terrain vehicles. Equipment can include, for example, construction equipment, farm implements, and lawn care machinery. Vehicles that are operated off-road or in regions of snow are especially vulnerable to accumulating deposits such as mud, ice and salt. Debris can include grass clippings and other organic detritus. Failure to remove these deposits and debris can cause rusting of or damage to the undercarriage and associated parts. General Motors, for example, recommends that the undercarriage and wheel well regions of its vehicles be cleaned periodically to prevent rust.
Prior art includes various attempts to clean undercarriages. U.S. Pat. No. 4,984,746 to Joyal discloses a device to remove such deposits and debris from an undercarriage. Joyal provides a T-shaped, three-wheeled base member having at least one upwardly facing steerable water nozzle. Means exits to receive a washing liquid and direct the washing liquid to the nozzle. A handle is fixedly attached to the base member and includes a means for orienting the nozzle. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 4,580,726 to Unger discloses a car under-washing device that, like Joyal, mounts upward facing water jets on a base member that can be wheeled under a vehicle. The jets are mounted on a T-shaped tube within the base member, which generally resembles a flat vacuum cleaner head. The devices of both Joyal and Unger are large, cumbersome, and directing a stream from either device into a confined space, such as a wheel well, would be difficult. The operator has no clear view of the orientation of the nozzles. A nozzle can freeze in position during icing conditions or with successive layers of deposits or debris falling on it. Both devices are too large to tip over easily, thereby making cleaning difficult. Finally, a heavy wheeled apparatus cannot be easily pushed back and forth through mud, snow or other soft surface.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,079,640 to Merritts teaches an undercarriage washer that includes a bent tube defining an inlet for a washing fluid that is fluidly connected to a plurality of orifices. Merrits' device eliminates the cumbersome bases of Joyal and Unger. Unfortunately, an operator must bear the entire weight of the device and the force of the water jets emanating from the orifices. The latter limits the pressure of the water jets because an operator must resist the force developed by multiple high pressure jets. Practically, multiple water jets are undesirable. Each water jet reduces the pressure of the jets and, therefore, their cleaning power. The back-and-forth motion of cleaning can even allow the water jet nearest the handle to squirt water into the air and perhaps onto the user.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,982,896 to Crow discloses a spray wand adapted to be connected to a garden hose. A fluid enters the wand and is directed to a nozzle. The nozzle includes a slit having a box-like passage and hemispherical walls that form the effluent into an elongated ribbon. The ribbon effluent is described as having greater cleaning capacity than a simple uniaxially symmetric stream. Negatively, the wand provides no apparent way to clean an undercarriage except for the operator to get on the ground a spray upwards towards the undercarriage. The pressure developed by the nozzle is limited by the incoming pressure of a simple garden hose.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,820,037 to Lawrence teaches an undercarriage washer having an inverted bowl-shaped element defining a nozzle directed substantially vertically. Water from a standard garden hose is fed into the element so that water sprays vertically from the nozzle. The element is supported by a wheel. The device of Lawrence has significant shortcomings. First, a vertical cleaning stream is not effective for large undercarriage parts, such as axles or springs. The vertical stream fails to impinge on the top surface of such large parts. Second, during cleaning, the copious quantities of water are used that end up below the undercarriage. Unless cleaning is performed on a water-impervious surface, such as concrete or asphalt, water will soften or muddy the surface. Pushing a wheel through such a soft surface is difficult. U.S. Pat. No. 6,247,658 to Bakas is similar to Lawrence but preferably includes two wheels. The problem of pushing wheels through mud or snow persists. Baker identifies a slit-like opening that may be rotated about a vertical axis, but no provision exists for altering the nozzle type or angle with respect to the vertical.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,045,064 to Abraham teaches an undercarriage washer comprising a rigid tube having an elbow conduit with a nozzle. A single wheel is mounted to the rigid tube adjacent to the elbow conduit. A garden hose may be connected to one end of the rigid tube. In use, the Abraham washer may be rolled back-and-forth. It still suffers from the problems associated with wheels; however, the position of the wheel permits the nozzle to be directed at angles other than vertically. Such non-vertical angles allow cleaning of larger undercarriage parts. The nozzle, like a common garden hose nozzle, may be adjusted to change the spray pattern.
A need exists for an undercarriage washer that controllably discharges a high-pressure cleaning fluid and can be maneuvered on all surfaces. Advantageously, switching nozzles would alter the spray pattern, and detergents and degreasers could be injected into the cleaning fluid.